The present invention relates to meat tenderizing apparatus and is particularly concerned with such apparatus which can be used in tenderizing meat cuts which contain bones.
The tenderizing of meat by either chemical and/or mechanical means is now quite common because the supply of meat which is naturally adequately tender is far smaller than the demand. While injection with suitable tenderizing chemicals is extensively used, there is widespread opposition to the use of chemicals in foodstuffs and consequently mechanical tenderizing is favored by many meat suppliers and consumers. Many machines for mechanical meat tenderizing have been designed and are available. For example, U.S. Pat. No. 3,283,360 to Tamain discloses a convenient and efficient machine for this purpose. In this machine and others, long, thin, knife blades are repeatedly thrust into a meat cut, thus making a large number of incisions and severing the tough connective tissues in the meat cut at a large number of points therein.
It has been found, however, that the use of such machines is limited by the fact that they can only be employed with cuts of meat that do not contain bones. Since the long, thin, piercing elements or knives are rigidly held to permit forcing them into the meat cut, they are easily bent or broken if they encounter anything hard, such as a bone, in the meat. Not only does this render the tenderizing apparatus inoperative, but it may result in sharp metal fragments being left in the meat cut, with consequent danger for a consumer. Moreover, the stripping plates used do not operate very satisfactorily with meat cuts that are uneven in thickness.
Accordingly, attempts have been made to provide machines for meat tenderizing in which the piercing elements are protected against breakage in the event a bone or other hard object is encountered in the meat. In some instances, the individual piercing elements have been separately or independently mounted so that all of the elements need not move together under an applied force and if one or more elements meets with more than a predetermined amount of resistance in penetrating the meat cut, the force applied to such element or elements may be diminished or discontinued. It has, however, been found that the available machines of this type are not entirely satisfactory.
It is an object of the present invention, therefore, to provide meat tenderizing apparatus that can be satisfactorily and safely employed with meat cuts regardless of whether they contain bones or other hard objects or material and whether the thickness of the cut is uniform.
It is a further object of the invention to provide a construction for tenderizing apparatus which is simple and requires little attention.